


Any Other Way

by anomieow



Category: The Terror (TV 2018)
Genre: Anal Sex, M/M, PWP, Rimming, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-18
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:34:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24245110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow
Summary: Late one night, Dr. McDonald receives a visitor.This is just smut, y’all.
Relationships: Dr. Alexander McDonald/Cornelius Hickey, William Gibson/Cornelius Hickey
Comments: 8
Kudos: 45





	Any Other Way

Dr. Alexander McDonald ought to turn in: he’s read and reread the same paragraph in Lyell at least a dozen times, but the words swim and twist before his eyes. No matter. He’s read it before and will read it again. And he’s not even exhausted so much as he’s bored—a bone-deep, stuporous ennui. For a mind as inquisitive and restless as his, it’s torture. Given nothing else to occupy it, his mind wanders where it oughtn’t, not lonely as he is—just to tangle his limbs with another’s, hold in his palm the eager, hard length of some young man whimpering beneath his touch, to tease from the tip that glittering, irrefutable proof of— _yes, sir, please, don’t stop,_ —He is just about to free his stiffening prick, buy at least 10 minutes’ reprieve from the encroaching tedium, when there’s a soft tap at this door. 

He knows that tap. It’s a soft, quick double tap. A nervous, pacing energy to it. _Impeccable timing_ , he thinks to himself as he rises to open the door. “You,” he murmurs to the slender figure who greets him, his pale face tilting up at him out of the shadows. A small man his visitor is, with large, luminous eyes, fine gleaming hair tucked behind his ears, a prominent nose over a small but sensuously formed mouth. Alexander leans out through the doorway, glances around, and, satisfied no witness lurks in the shadows, steps back to allow his guest into his small cabin. 

“What can I do for you, Mr. Hickey?” he asks, sitting down on the edge of his bunk and patting the narrow space next to him for the younger man to do the same. 

But Cornelius Hickey only sidles a few inches closer, his eyes gleaming in the candle light and his mouth curled into a sly little smile. “I’d say we’re past pretense, doctor.” 

Alexander sighs. “Humor me,” he says amiably.

“You’d like to play doctor, then? Examine me inch-by-inch before you stick me with that dirty thing of yours? Probe, pinch?” He’s standing in the space between Alexander’s open thighs now. 

“I’ve heard worse ideas,” Alexander muses. “Although _I’d_ say we’re past such provoking vulgarity.”

“You wouldn’t have me any other way,” Cornelius asserts a touch pettishly, finally taking a seat not next to the doctor but on top of him, straddling his lap, knees folded either side of the much taller man. 

Alexander shrugs, smiling. He’s classically, understatedly handsome, the way someone’s father might be, and Cornelius likes how he looks at him: appreciative and desirous, but with none of that—God, he can’t stand the weight of Billy’s gaze sometimes. He stares at him like he’s too good to be true, all wide eyes and wonder. It’s a gaze that lingers on him long after Billy’s turned away, as sweet and clinging as syrup. But Alexander takes him in stride—at any rate, he does not give the impression of fragility the way Billy does, nor would he, in a thousand years, dote and coo the way Billy does. 

He leans in for a kiss. Before Alexander, Cornelius only kissed when necessary. It’s sentimental and repulsive besides, at least when done in that desperate, sloppy way most men do it. But Alexander’s technique is _perfect._ As though he’s studied it in a book. His kisses are clean, thorough, precise: just like anything done by an adept doctor should be. They kiss for so long that when Cornelius finally pulls away his lips feel swollen and a touch sore. Alexander smiles at him and ghosts his thumb along his lower lip, which is now so exquisitely sensitive he gasps against his will; his eyes fall shut. Seeing this, Alexander leans forward and seizes that same overworked bit of flesh between his teeth, sucking at it so it’s pulled full and flush against his tongue. A pretty little whine escapes Cornelius throat.

Alexander is tall, verging on lanky, and Cornelius feels contained by him: his one arm draped around his waist, his other pressed up against his spine, fingers tangled in his hair. He inhales, exhales, wills his hammering heart to slow. Nothing would be more humiliating than to seem over-eager, frenzied. But now those strong hands travel down his back, curve under his arse—the scars there are palpable, he’s sure, even through the coarse material of his trousers. The large hands squeeze, squeeze, lift him closer and deeper in to the warmth and smell and sheltering space the doctor’s made for him.

 _In another life,_ Alexander thinks to himself, _were we closer in station—in age—and even then, of course, he’s not one whit trustworthy—_ but these thoughts, though they’ll tease him later, rattle like poltergeists down the halls of his skull for days afterwards, are no use now. He shoves them aside and positions his hips so that even through two layers of fabric his need cannot be ignored. Cornelius’ eyes gleam and his lips lift in a crooked, toothy grin. His cheeks are flushed and a little lick of dull red hair has swung out from behind his ear and bounces against his temple as he rises onto his knees and teases the doctor’s prick with the cleft of his ass, lightly dragging up and down his length. Alexander leans back on his locked elbows and enjoys what is offered him: Cornelius is smiling down at him, his trim and muscular body moving lightly, playfully, against his. But relishing the moment has never been Alexander’s way. Swiftly he reaches for Cornelius’ cock and clasps it roughly through his trousers. “Show me,” he orders softly, “what you do when you’re alone.” 

“You’d like to see?”

“That’s what I said, isn’t it?” His voice is made for this: he manages somehow to sound kind and authoritarian at once, and it never fails to go straight to Cornelius’ cock. “But don’t you dare stop that bit with your hips.” 

So keeping up his dancing roll against the insistent ridge in Alexander’s lap, Cornelius frees his prick from the constraint of his shabby trousers. He loves this, Alexander knows: being seen, being appreciated for the wonder he is. He’s as limber and pale as flame, flickering in the dim light above Alexander’s body, which now smolders beneath him like a bed of embers. Cornelius takes his prick in one hand and with the other laves his fingers with saliva, and slowly begins to stroke himself. 

The contrast between the naked, compactly muscular body astride him and his own gangly, darkly-garbed body hazes Alexander’s thinking like a fever. He lets his eyes roam the length of Cornelius’ body, drinking in each delicious detail: the striking contrast between the rosiness of his prick and his pale, delicate hand; the lithe muscles of his torso tapering into a neat thatch of reddish hair; the soft shadows of his hipbones; his thighs flexing as he rolls his hips along Alexander’s aching shaft. A wicked half-smile plays on his lips, which are still reddish and slightly puffy from vigorous kissing. He knows what a vision he is: it shows in his eyes. Proud, joyful. Something self-pleased, too, in that grating way Cornelius has.

So Alexander seizes him by the hips. “Enough,” he says, scooting back so he’s propped against the head of the bed. Only a lover would recognize the incremental shift in his voice, for though it is as kind and genial as ever, a silken edge of sternness has crept in that makes Cornelius tremble inwardly. This is why he comes to the doctor, this is what Billy cannot give him: he grows sick of playing husband and wife. Alexander watches intently as he strips down to nothing; even his socks he leaves tucked into his boots. His gaze is kind, warm, a bit impatient, and there’s an inherent rigidity in his features that runs counter to his warm, generous nature: the firm mouth, the low, level brow, dimples deeply notched in a broad, angular face. He pats his thigh with a quiet smile and Cornelius heeds, crawling to him. 

Moments later, Alexander is up on his knees behind him as he waits on all fours for—what? He glances over his shoulder and sees that the doctor is still mostly dressed. His waistcoat is a rich hunter green that brings out the reddish tints in his hair; his shirtsleeves are rolled up to elbows. Being completely naked, vulnerable, while his partner is still dressed—Cornelius feels bare-throated, disarmed. But the kind-hearted doctor is one of the only men worthy of his trust. Alexander catches his eye and actually winks. Any other man, Cornelius would sneer or roll his eyes—winking, he believes, is—

But then Cornelius isn’t capable of believing or thinking anything as Alexander’s nimble tongue darts out against the seam between his stones, laves a warm path across the tender patch of taut flesh behind, and comes to linger over the finely ruched ring of flesh he finds there. His first sweeps are soft, lazy, exploratory; as Cornelius—huffing through his teeth, tongue jammed against the roof of his mouth to keep quiet—lets his body loosen, bloom, Alexander sets about in earnest the task of readying him. Though in truth, he could stay longer like this, if there were time. He wonders how long Cornelius could bear being teased, if he might turn feral like an alley cat or, like a rich woman’s Persian, would he purr and flex beneath his hands? But here in the ice and and in necessary near-silence, and up against the merciless imperative of watches and bells, there is no time to find out. 

So he pulls his mouth away only to replace it with a finger. There’s little resistance, so he slides a second in. “How accommodating you are,” he murmurs in a way that makes Cornelius’ cock twitch. 

“Hurry,” he says. He aims for a snarl but it emerges as a whine. This infuriates him, and he fights an urge to reach back and grab Alexander by the hair, yank, show him he’s not boss like he thinks—but then the doctor’s tongue returns to his hole alongside the two fingers, dribbling down a slick of saliva and it just feels so perfect, so clean—then _fuck,_ , his deft fingertips graze that spot, that—whatever it is, a bundling of nerves, perhaps; at any rate a sublime sensation, almost too much, flashes through him. He closes his eyes and feels himself thrust shamelessly against the doctor’s mouth and fingers. Then with cruel suddenness the pressure of the fingers and the sticky warmth of the tongue are gone. 

Alexander wraps his arms around Cornelius’ chest and drags him back. “Ride me, lad,” he whispers hoarsely in Cornelius’ ear. “Round front. Let me see you.” 

He lies down on his back, toying idly with his cock. He presents a delectable vision: almost impossibly tall in the small space, neatly dressed but for his shed coat and freed cock, his hair in disarray, his gaze at once kindly and imperious—Cornelius, to whom beauty is like algebra, something whose existence he acknowledges but for which he has little use, is now struck by just that. A sense of beauty—of affection and wonder without rancor. At certain angles and in certain light, Billy’s face—the pale, expressive eyes, the long, sharp slope of his nose, the pronounced curves and hollows of his face—evokes the same in him. He doesn’t like it; it makes it hard to breathe.

So now he clambers atop Alexander, who watches him with a soft smile. Like a street boy he spits in his palm and slathers it onto Alexander’s prick, then guides it to his opening. The doctor sighs with satisfaction as the younger man’s hand grasps him; that sigh becomes a hiss as Cornelius slowly—achingly slowly—begins to lower himself down. Seemingly centimeters at a time. “Hurry,” he pleads.

“What’s good for the goose,” Cornelius retorts, sinking the rest of the way down in one motion. Alexander doesn’t miss the shadow of pain that crosses his face and makes a note to ask him about it after, when he’s cleaning him up and checking his scars. Now that scurvy is baring its fangs among the crew, it is possible that such young scars as those from the lashing will open again, darkening and splitting like badly-sewn seams.

But his concerns are washed away as Hickey begins to move, rising up and gliding down, his hands on Alexander’s chest—the paleness of his fingers, ruddy at the knuckles, is beautiful against the rich green of the waistcoat. His prick, ignored and leaking, bounces rhythmically as he fucks Alexander. 

“Touch yourself if you’d like,” Alexander says. 

“I’m liable to ruin your fine waistcoat, doctor,” Cornelius smirks. 

He’s never thought about it, but the idea of Cornelius—this half-feral, lean little flame of a man, his face beguilingly cherubic, now naked atop him as he reclines still fully dressed beneath him—to see him spend on the jacquard of his waistcoat, little gobbets of pearlescent white against the hunter green—his breath catches in his throat to think of it. “I’d love if you did,” he says.

Cornelius smiles, head tilted, in that way of his that means _we’ll see_ , and slows his pace teasingly. Suddenly Alexander seizes him by the waist and minutely adjusts his angle of thrust—a little micro-correction, carried out with a doctor’s polished, impersonal exactitude. “There,” he says warmly, thrusting upwards into Cornelius’ body. Cornelius stiffens and bites back a yelp. For with one adroit, incremental adjustment he’s brought that magic spot into line with the thrusts of his cock. His hands linger on Cornelius’ hips now, his fingers digging in. He begins to meet Cornelius’ thrusts with upward thrusts of his own. 

Fleetingly, Cornelius realizes that he’s no longer in charge. Was he ever? Isn’t this why Billy, petty and sweet and intolerably fragile, his long neck made to be collared, was never quite enough for him? That was never the whole of his wishes, to have a handmaiden. He wants to pleasure someone too. There’s a purity and cleanliness to it that he craves, no matter how foolish it is. 

“Touch yourself,” the doctor says again. This time it is an order. So Cornelius takes himself gingerly in hand: he’s not ready for this to be over yet. But then Alexander’s hands travel down over the scars that he himself had bathed and dressed for weeks. That he had encouraged to heal. Suddenly now he clenches his fingers, digging his nails in. “I want you to finish for me,” he says. “Please. Let me see.” So Cornelius tightens his grip and quickens his stroke—he’s damned near anyway—and sinks into the trillion sensations of his body: the fullness of the doctor’s cock inside of him, the burning pain of his nails digging into his arse, the scars humming with a soft bright tenderness just where the cat bit him open all those months ago—now _that’s_ a delicious sensation; he’ll have to remember to thank the good captain for it when he gets a chance. He rocks down onto one elbow and, stretching, presses his mouth against Alexander’s throat, nips hard. He’s rewarded with a particularly violent thrust and that’s what finishes him, spilling through his body and out, leaving arc after arc of jism on the doctor’s waistcoat. Just like he wanted. 

Alexander, spurred by Cornelius’ release—the young man’s spend scattered over his waistcoat like nebulae, evidence of a pleasure he made possible—follows, grunting a curse from behind clenched teeth, his eyebrows raised and eyes fluttered shut. _He’s beautiful when he comes,_ Cornelius catches himself thinking, but it’s a difficult thought, and he waves it away.

After his breathing and heart rate slow, Alexander sets about cleaning himself and Hickey up. Hickey rolls onto his belly, resting his head on his crossed arms. Alexander’s touch is gentle as he wipes him clean; his fingers light on the hard curves of his buttocks as he touches each scar. “Healed up like a champ,” he says good-humoredly. “But please do keep an eye on them. We’ve a bit of scurvy about.”

Cornelius nods. His mind is already elsewhere. Alexander wishes he would stay for just five, ten minutes, lie down at his side: but he’s not the kind, and Alexander knows it. So he won’t ask: he never has. He smiles up at him as he makes to leave. “Don’t stay away so long next time,” he admonishes in a jovial tone.

Cornelius studies his face, a soft smirk playing on his lips. Then he opens the door and steps silently out into the dark.


End file.
